


Beneath

by duointherain



Series: Beneath [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2019-10-25 13:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17725835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duointherain/pseuds/duointherain
Summary: Wartime, the boys and Relena go on a mission to take out a bioweapons development center. The center is on a platform at the center of the lake. I think there's a monster in the lake.  It's probably hungry.





	1. Chapter 1

Beneath  
by duointherain

disclaimer: I don’t own ‘Gundam Wing’. I also don’t own ‘Beneath’ which is a Syfy B movie I just watched and this story really doesn’t go with that one much. Monster in the water... it’s a common B movie trope. Corvis is mine though. He gets a copyright date of 2018

Note 1: So it’s a get together. There are elements of 1/R, 3/4, and 1/2, there might even be a 2/R kiss in there, but in the end it’s 1/2, cuz that’s where my heart is. 

Note: If you want to see my original stuff, it’s at www.themoonspermission.com

 

“This isn’t a ship,” Duo said, staring down at the rowboat. “It’s more like one of Q’s tea service bullshit things.” 

It was dawn, just barely. It was just barely enough dawn for the sky to be Duo’s eye color. His face twisted up as he stared out over the lake, or rather at the fluffy layer of fog over the lake. Fingertips tucked under his arms, he looked like a rebellious teenager.

Relena smiled at him, her rosy lips protected by some innocent pink lip protectant. She pointed at him with an elegant white leather gloved finger. “You’d be happier if you’d have worn the cold weather gear I set out for you rather than a hoodie when it’s 35 degrees out.” 

Heero had his own gear and he wasn’t paying attention to either of them as he moved their ‘cooler’ and other party supplies into the thing that Wufei claimed was a ‘boat’. 

Duo huffed, his breath going to join the blanket of fog over the lake like a ghost leaving the body. His eyes though watched Heero’s shoulders move under the black microfiber coat that clung to his form. Heero seemed to be big on form-fitting shit. At least he didn’t look like a fucking marshmallow like Relena.

“Oh Duo,” Quatre said, hurrying down the little path towards them. “Trowa, see, I told you!” 

Quatre seemed to favor the same puffy marshmallow bullshit that Relena did, but at least his was some kind gray camo colored. Suddenly he had a billowy coat in his hands, maybe the same microfiber that Heero was wearing. “Put this on! You’re going to die out here!” 

“Don’t make predictions,” Trowa bite out. 

Duo didn’t have the energy to fight Quatre’s jolly goodwill and put the coat on, let Quatre pull up the hood and adjust the temperature on it. It was much better than a hoodie. Miles better than wearing Relena’s gifts. His eyes settled on her, noted that she was looking at Heero’s shoulders too, and he had a sharp and vivid image of pushing her into the water. ‘Oh Well! Too wet, must try again tomorrow!’ Maybe if she broke a nail, she’d give up trying to help.

“Now don’t be like that,” Quatre said sweetly, angelic smile. It was an unsettling lie, because Duo knew that Q would gank an enemy while still smiling prettily. “You’ll do better if you’re only pretending to be cold and miserable.” 

“I’m a bad liar,” Duo grumbled. 

“Bullshit,” Trowa grumbled back. “You’re an excellent liar when you need to be. This is a boat, not a ship, get in.” 

Heero already had point and Duo thought he looked like some kind of obsidian dragon, crouched tight, ready to spring out and fight the fog, the enemy, evil itself. 

Speaking of dragons, Wufei came out from the cover of the trees, dressed like Heero, but slightly greener, slightly more elegant like some vengeful spirit made of ink and green tea. 

Fingers working into his sleeves, which were considerably warmer than just his hoodie, Duo took stock of his teammates. A princess, a prince, a president (if Heero wasn’t now, he would be someday), and a king, but then there was him and he was a rat. Trowa had to be a king. He was Quatre’s boyfriend and clearly the king of the pair. Maybe. Duo put his boot on the edge of the little wooden thing that Trowa called a boat and rocked it disdainfully. “She shouldn’t come.” 

“We’ve been over this, Duo,” Relena said, settling down on the wooden bench in the center of the boat and positioning a fluffy gray blanket over her lap. “This is the best plan. We can’t allow them to keep toxin. They may well use it as a bioweapon. I’m not afraid.”

He twisted up his face, silently echoing her disavowal of fear. “And what’chu think we’re gon do with the fucks on that station?”

“We have an excellent plan. I’m here to help it work well. Together, we will get the toxin, destroy the records of it, and make it back to the school in time for class. It is a splendid plan.” 

“It’s a shit plan. This planet is a shit planet. Who the fuck designed these enviro-controls. This is shit all the way around.” His soliloquy was given in a thick L2 accent, punctuated by snarls.

“Then stay here,” Heero said, emotionless. 

“Everything will be fine,” Quatre said, smiling. 

Duo hated the insane that showed up in Q’s eyes sometimes. In that moment, he really considered it, just staying. That would leave Heero with these huffers though. He knew the princess didn’t know what she was getting into. When they’d discussed the plan, he’d imagined her panicking and getting her rich ass killed dead like a martyr, which in the warmth of their dorm room, far from it actually happening, hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea. His second thought in that moment was to just tell her what the fuck was going to go down, actually going to go down.  
Maybe it was her innocence and idealism that Heero liked. Duo held his breath, cheeks puffing out. Internal conflict between wanting Heero to be happy and wanting Heero to like him better than the marshmallow princess clawed around at what was left of his fifteen-year-old soul. “Look, R. This is a military operation, not a fuckin’ tea party.” 

Then there were the millions of lives this gangster faction could do if someone didn’t put a boot up their ass far enough. He really didn’t know another way to get onto the station at the center of the lake without Her Majesty. They couldn’t just drop kick it with a gundam either. That would just spread the toxin for the assholes. This forest was full of strange lives, deer and frogs and hippies and shit. Earth was full of shit, so much shit. 

What’s worse, in misty fog, the early morning light, Relena lifted her chin, those blue eyes so normal and beautiful, her lips soft and kissable in a way that no shit ought to be, but she was beautiful. “I am not afraid,” she said. Her voice was beautiful. Her hands holding the blanket were beautiful. She probably had Heero’s and everyone else’s heart on a fucking chain already, like a ... a ... charm bracelet. A gundam pilot for almost every day of the week. Except Friday. Duo decided he was Friday and Friday always got fucking lost. Probably made of cheap ass dangerous petroleum plastic anyway. 

Quatre took Trowa’s hand as he stepped into the boat. “Sit here, by me, Duo,” Quatre said, patting the wooden bench. 

‘Steal a Gundam, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.’ “Fuck my life,” Duo growled. He avoided Quatre’s hand and moved to sit behind Heero, knelt down on the floorboards of the shitty over sized fucking teacup. He glared at Relena, daring her to complain that he was blocking her view of Prince Heero. He was thinking that rats bite, they could give a fancy bitch a nasty bit. 

Wufei and Trowa pushed at the boat, shoving it off the gravel beach and into the mist. The mist rolled over the edges of the boat, filling it like premonition. He curled in on himself, one bare hand resting on the chill wood of the boat’s floor. Water was like a living thing, it seemed to him, huge and intelligent, dark depths that held a hunger that Duo could identify with. It moved them, lifting, shifting them. 

Once they were away from the edge enough, Wufei gripped the back of the boat, some black slink of a thing swirling around his wrist, making it look small and somehow more dangerous for it. The darkness formed into something that acted like an engine, sending the wood bullshit forward across the grey lake. 

Heero sank down to the most narrow bench, at the very front. Heero was Heero and made no sound as he moved. Perfect stealth, perfect all that bullshit, but Duo found himself smiling up at him anyway. Heero’s face still had the face paint from the football game the day before. His hair, too long and spikey for someone trying to fit in, still had a bit of green and yellow paint in it too. Heero was not good at football. The point of aggression for fun seemed completely lost on him. 

The movement of Heero’s hand was so subtle, Duo almost missed it, but there between Heero’s fingers was Duo’s favorite candy, a little mint thing covered in dark mint. Heero’s smile was almost stealth too, so small, that you had to know it to find it. 

If there was anything Duo was good at, it was hiding the food he was eating. He could be Heero’s pet rat. That’d work okay. 

The lake was big. The boat was small. In a gundam, the lake would be passed over before one had time to look from one screen to the next. Traveling by wood, Duo was sure the mist was trying to climb into his coat. It made him wonder just how much of Earth was sentient. Did it hate colonists too? Did the rabbits resent not being able to go beyond the sky? 

“So,” Quatre said, opening a thermos, a stack of cups held between his knees. “Who believes in eternal love?”

For just a moment, everyone turned to look at him, faces rosy from the cold, eyes confused. 

“Love is a lie of neurotransmitters,” Heero said softly. “Now be quiet.”

“Nonsense,” Quatre said, turning to offer Wufei a cup of something steaming warm. “Are we not a boat of lost, and drunk teenagers? We mustn’t be quiet. Heero, who are you taking to prom?”

Heero’s lips froze mid-reply. The image of those rosy lips pursed like that held Duo like he’d fallen down a gravity well. Those lips were way more kissable, and like muscular. Could lips be muscular? They weren’t soft like Relena’s, but harder, honest-er, somehow, and Duo’s stomach flopped around like he was a fish on a hook. 

“Well,” Relena asked, turning to accept her cup from Quatre. “It’s you and I together, right? Prom king and queen?”

“Uh,” Heero said, the right side of his upper lip twitching, eyebrow rising in synchronicity. It was like he’d fallen down a hill and his brain hadn’t caught up yet.

Duo sat up then, not hiding the bit of dark mint as he rubbed it off his lower lip. He smirked, a crooked grin, and said with no for sure meaning, “I thought we were going together.” He watched Heero as he said it. It was a very small moment of looking at Heero meaningfully, watching the color brighten his Japanese cheeks before Duo turned to give Relena an overly flirty wink.

She sat up straighter, those pink glossy lips parting in surprise. That girl had no expression, no angle, no lighting that didn’t make her out to be the fucking most beautiful person ever born. 

Behind Duo’s smile he was wondering if there was such a thing as water deer and if he shoved her fancy ass into the lake, if maybe one of them would eat her. 

“Are you asking me to the prom, Duo?” Her smile never faltered, but there was an edge of charity in it. 

The charity he thought he saw made his teeth itch. “Yeah,” he said, nose wrinkling. 

Wrinkles were never going to touch her face, but she drew in maybe more breath than she actually needed. “Heero? I thought you had asked me first.” 

“Nope,” Heero said, eyes narrowing. 

Duo knew that look. Someone was going to get his ass murdered. 

“Idiots,” Wufei hissed, pointing ahead to what might have been some kind of oil rig at some point, but was now a bio-research facility. “Focus.” 

“Yeah,” Duo said, voice taunting. 

Then Relena flipped him off, subtle, pretty white leather clad finger lifted just for him. “Time to do my part?”

She pulled diamond drop earrings from her pocket, slipping them easily into her ears. She smiled at Duo like he should watch how it’s done, as she slipped out of her long coat and pulled her hat off, tossing it at him. 

It hit him in the face, scented like roses and fluffy like some bunny that would never see space. He crunched it in his fist as she stood up. Dressed in a cheerleader skirt and top, goosebumps all over her smooth creamy skin, pretty blond hair in pigtails curls that brushed and clung to her cheeks, she rubbed her arms, but when the station’s spotlight hit her, she waved with every bit of privilege and power she’d ever had. She just about outshone the spotlight. She held out both hands beseechingly to the light, to the person behind it. “Please! Help us!” 

Duo turned to look at Heero, but he was already gone, over the side. It was like a sliver of his heart had gone overboard without saying goodbye. From where he was hunched, Duo slipped out of his coat and stood up too, waving his hands. “Help!” 

Trowa and Wufei had gone over at some point, leaving Quatre to stand up as well, hands up, looking like a frostbitten ball-joint doll. Two dolls and a rat, but you gotta watch what you bring aboard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mute? Relena called Duo mute...

Beneath 2/?  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

disclaimer: I don’t own ‘Gundam Wing’. I also don’t own ‘Beneath’ which is a Syfy B movie I just watched and this story really doesn’t go with that one much. Monster in the water... it’s a common B movie trope. Corvis is mine though. He gets a copyright date of 2018

Note 1: So it’s a get together. There are elements of 1/R, 3/4, and 1/2, there might even be a 2/R kiss in there, but in the end it’s 1/2, cuz that’s where my heart is. 

 

Over a bullhorn, ancient ass technology, someone asked, “State your name and intentions!” 

Duo kept his face in the best frightened teenager face he could manage, hands up. His mind was on the pistols holstered at his ankles, the small of his back, and between his shoulder blades. He was just having a moment to think about what a bad ass he was when Relena put her hand on his shoulder and shoved him back to his knees, so she could lean forward into the light. 

“I am Relena Darlian! We are in need of assistance!”

The shadows behind the light consulted with each other. Relena started crying. 

So this was the plan. She’d distract them. They’d turn the boat away. Heero, Trowa, and Wufei would kill them all and destroy the weapon. Duo hoped they’d find a better boat. Dead tree was the worst shit to be riding around on, especially if there might be water deers waiting to eat them. 

“Miss,” a woman said, using the bullhorn. “This is a secure facility. It isn’t safe for you here. We’ll contact Fish and Wildlife on your behalf.”

Duo felt Relena’s fingers bite into his shoulder. She was stronger than she looked. “Are you refusing to render aid when requested?” 

“We will summon aid for you, Miss Darlian.” The woman smiled, but it was one of those thin plastic wrap over a shitty sandwich smiles. “How did you get out here?”

Duo looked up at Relena and it was like watching a movie. She pressed the side of her now bare hand to her temple, sighing dramatically. “We were at the football game and my boyfriend. He’s a local boy! Very nice! He’s going to meet my mother next month, you understand! He suggested that seeing the stars out here would be much better and he could explain some of the difficulty with my understanding of astronomy, but,” she sighed again, her hand now over the curves of her cleavage, “But when he was pushing the boat out, he slipped and we just kind of floated away! You’re the first sign of civilization we’ve seen! If you’ll just let us come in and get warm, if you have a working communication connection, I can call my family and they will send a helicopter right away. We won’t be any bother at all!” 

Duo kept his head down as he wondered if she knew they were going to kill everyone on the station and destroy their lives’ work. 

“It’s just the three of you?”

“Yes,” Relena said before giving a relieved sigh. “This is my dear friend Quatre! He’s from the Winner family, very nice family. You are familiar with the Winner family, I’m sure. New money, in their way, but still very nice. This is my servant. He’s a mute.” 

If Duo hadn’t been already mostly frozen, the color would have drained from his face. He was mute like Relena loved flea markets. 

The woman above them gritted her teeth. “Fine. You will contact your family immediately and you will never mention this place, ever. Is that agreed?”

“Of course,” Relena said, “but your assistance will be greatly appreciated!” 

The woman kicked a rope ladder over the edge of the platform with a grunt. 

It was in that moment that Duo realized that they might should have explained the plan in more detail to Relena. Be a distraction was clearly not clear enough. He looked back over his shoulder at Quatre who was also having no trouble looking like a confused and frightened teenager. For all they knew Heero was going to blow the whole shit to toothpicks in a minute. 

While Duo and Quatre were looking at each other, trying to telepathically come up with a plan that didn’t get them shot by the snipers on the platform, Relena just grabbed the ladder and up she went. Her weight left the little rowboat rocking. 

“You next, Mr. Winner,” a new man said. “You really should hurry. The water isn’t safe.”

The profanity that passed between Duo and Quatre needed no actual vocalization. Quatre stood, giving every impression of a finely breed mansion kitty that wouldn’t land on its feet if it fell from the couch. “Water is always dangerous! This was not a good idea. I’m so grateful to have happened upon you.” 

Duo kept his eyes on the water, hood up so that no one would see him rolling his eyes. When they got back to a safe house, not the damn dorms, but a real safe house, he was going to draw the shit out of swishy gay boy Winner who was about to kill the shit out of fuckers who didn’t give him enough respect. Howard was always lecturing about the lack of planning, lack of structure, lack of foresight in Duo’s plans. While this wasn’t a plan he was going to claim, he could totally see how Howard was right. He was going to do better. 

When it was his turn, he grabbed the ladder, but they were pulling it up faster than he could climb. Someone else put a bullet hole in the little dead tree boat. That had actually been the exit strategy. So here’s hoping that blowing it up wasn’t in Heero’s plans. 

The rise to the platform gave Duo just enough time to wonder how long he could pretend to be mute. Once on the platform, Relena and Quatre were gently ushered towards some stairs that lead up to a room of glass and light. Duo got offered a blanket and a seat on a box, near the landing pad. 

He watched them walk away, watched Relena point at him and demand and get carried away by the flow of officers anyway. 

This place was too small to have so many officers. 

“Kid, you want some hot chocolate?” A guy asked. 

Duo’s response lagged because he was watching where they were taking Relena and Quatre, but then the guy was touching his shoulder, making a gesture with the steaming cup, like it was something to drink. Great. Promoted from mute to deaf and stupid. Great. Duo could run with that though. He signed ‘Thank you’ and took the drink. His nice warm coat that Q had just given him was with the water deer. Fuck the water deer. 

“So you think the test was successful,” one guy asked.

“I don’t know,” the other standing with him, kind of casually guarding him. 

Duo focused on his drink. The enemy always had better food. He should raid their pantry on his way out. 

The first guy touched his headset. “Yeah, hey. The servant kid is deaf. No, no, he ain’t got no hearing aide. How should I know what rich bitches get up to. Yeah, he’s pretty, but he’s underage for your ass.” 

On the upside, he guessed, they hadn’t actually ‘seen’ him. They saw what they wanted to see, so maybe he didn’t have to kill them. That could be okay. 

Then something in the water hit the platform hard enough to knock Duo off the crate he was sitting on. It tipped the platform enough that the second guy who had been watching over him slid towards the edge. The place had no fucking railings at all.

“Jose!”

Duo dropped his cup and threw himself after the guy, grabbing his hand before he went all the way over. The other guy grabbed both of them, only to have another impact send all three of them into the dark cold water.


	3. Popcorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena POV. She reacts to Duo falling overboard.

Beneath 3  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

Notes: This took forever and it’s small. Encouragement is greatly appreciated! 

 

Time felt slow. It felt like moments passed while she realized the tingling was her hair standing on end. She knew many career military people. She’d been around politicians all her life. The slightly forced friendliness that usually existed, which she’d never really considered before, did not exist with these people. She pulled the thin silver blanket tighter around her shoulders, but it did nothing to diminish the chill in her bones. 

A crack broke the near normalcy of the bridge, lightly tossed the people standing like the first few pops of popcorn. Relena imagined herself glued to the hard plastic chair. The next rumble threw her to her feet and would have sent her face down on the metal floor if she hadn’t run into a tall lieutenant instead. His arm went around her, instinctive and strong, as he grabbed hold of the main table, which barely kept them from falling towards the inner wall as the whole station tilted, back, then forward like the lid on the pot was about to lose all control. 

Out the huge windows, Relena watched Duo scramble after the other man, a hand out for him. The room felt too full of sound. She barely heard her own gasp as he went over, sliding past the line of light into the darkness that lay beyond the faux protection of the station. “Duo is in the water!” 

The strong arm around her held her, even as she pulled away, straining to see what was beyond that line of light. Around her, the dignitaries and officers made a different kind of rumble, their voices jumbled and no more significant to her than a child ignoring the supposed adults in the room. 

They were the adults though. Having her balance on the now titled floor, she jerked away from the man holding her. “You have to help him! He can’t swim!”

“The fuck we do,” the commander, a dark-eyed woman who looked like a descendant of Julius Ceasar sneered, her lips white, face lined. This was the commander’s project and it was literally going sideways. 

Relena strode closer to the commander, brows drawing down. Adults helped you! That’s what they did! “You can’t let him drown! He can’t swim!”

Rolling her eyes, the commander threw a folder she’d been holding towards the table. It slid off and fluttered like the best laid plans. Voice rising with an edge of hysteria, the woman snarled, “Is that because he’s a little terrorist from the colonies? They don’t learn to swim there, do they, princess?” She leaned really close to Relena, purring like a hungry cat with wounded prey. “Maybe your little terrorist boyfriend is going to die before I get a chance to shoot him for what he did to my project!”

Relena’s hand snapped out and slapped hard across the commander’s face, leaving red evidence. For a second the slap was the only sound in the room. All eyes on her, Relena stood straighter, still not as tall as the shocked commander. She looked up at the woman and accepted that she was the adult in the room. “I’m going to ruin people like you!” The words held a fiery conviction. 

Quatre, just a little blond shadow, slowly pulled a slender ceramic blade from the sheath under his sleeve. 

The commander reached to the small of her back for a lean pistol. 

Relena twisted and threw herself up towards the door. She never saw Quatre lunge. She never saw him wrap his legs around the commander, pinning one of her arms. She never saw the spray of blood as Quatre stirred the woman’s neck like a cocktail. 

It was hard running uphill. Outside of the claustrophobic bridge, away from the muttering of the powerful people, the air was filled with screams and cries, of ordinary soldiers trying to put things right. Heart racing, she toed out of her shoes, finally bending to undo the laces, to be able to spit them off. 

Arms over her head, she dove across the line of light into the darkness, just expecting there to be water below her. 

Her hands hit and it pulled her sideways, dragging her like a powerful undertow. Breath knocked out of her, that was as far as her plan had gone anyway. Her breath froze as hard muscled body smoothed against her and just kept going, pushing her to the side as the great length undulated along. Instinctively silent, desperately moving the water with both hands to get farther back away from whatever it was, her eyes adjusted enough that light from the station reflected on something in the water, long, huge. Thinking, she realized her feet had touched the side, but not where it curved. It was deeper than she was tall. 

It slammed into the station again and she got a few strokes in, away from the station, while the beast shook it, before the waves pulled at her, drawing her back. 

Duo broke the water, the light making his eyes dark wine. In that moment, fear grabbed her and she knew there were at least two monsters in the water. He motioned for her to follow and then disappeared back under the black mirror of water. 

Now she was beyond not having a plan. Nothing made sense! 

Then bullets popped against the water and she looked at the station. They weren’t aiming at the beast. Then sweet little Quatre, so small and so polite shot a man in the head. Dark sprayed towards the water. Relena’s head felt light, her mouth open. 

A cold hand covered her mouth from behind and deep, roughly accented voice growled, “Deep breath. Now.” 

She could do what she was told. Then Duo dragged her under.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Relena's pov, it's violent.

Beneath 4  
by Duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

Warnings: This chapter is violent. 

 

Notes: oh man... I hope this comes out good! I don’t know if it’s good or not, but it’s kinda short. 

 

Duo left her in a small sphere, a safe place under the water. She wanted to help. She didn’t stay where he told her too. 

<><>

Shiver went deep as bones, dancing on her skin, jaw clenched tight enough to ache. The light from the platform drew her, tugging her up out of the darkness like one tries to wake from a bad dream. The surface of the lake churned reflecting the fire burning on the platform. Debris crunched and rubbed against the pylons. She couldn’t feel the cold. It didn’t feel dangerous. 

Water pushed her, carrying her under the platform, back into more certain darkness. It swallowed her up and she panicked, lashing out at the ever-swirling liquid darkness, angry that she wasn’t where she wanted to be, that getting back on the platform hadn’t been easy, that maybe he’d been right when he said to stay where she was safe. 

Lungs burning, she wanted to open her mouth, gasp for air. When the thrashing water slammed her into hard metal, she would have gasped, had there been sound. Instead, darkness, cold and dirty like gas, flooded her mouth and only spite pushed it back out because the burning vacuum in her lungs wanted water if it couldn’t get air. 

The metal at her back had the boxy feel of a ladder and even if it was the last dream, she climbed. When the water broke over her, giving her back to the air, she coughed, spit, climbed still. Freezing metal, numb fingers, angry strength, and she reached and grabbed and pulled herself up into the light. If it was heaven, she was still going. Light had to be better than where she was! 

Gunshots sound so small in comparison to the drowning waters. Burning metal, rubber, and flesh, after the cold darkness of the water seemed like progress. On her hands and knees, she climbed onto some metal floor, bits of water splashing up through the dive portal after her. 

Heavy breathing, not her breathing, and she looked up to find a woman in a blood-stained white coat, body pressed against the door, just inches from the small round window. In her hand, she held a pistol and Relena imagined she could feel the heat of the barrel from feet away. The woman clenched her jaw, lips drawing back in a snarl, as she pressed a finger over her lips and silently mouthed, “Shhhhh.” 

Suddenly the dark water didn’t seem so bad. 

The darkness on the other side of the glass turned pale as Duo’s face peered in. His violet eyes seemed to glow. Dark splatters dripped over his pale face. Their eyes locked. Relena wanted to be a telepath, in that moment, really badly. Her eyes shifted to look at the woman who was now pointing that pistol at her. 

This was all serious. This was serious. This wasn’t just sneaking out and going to a graveyard. They were really doing what they said they were going to do. People were doing. She was going to die. How was she going to tell her mother?

The bullet zipped by her so fast she almost felt it. It hit the metal behind her and she stared. She never heard the door open. She heard bones break though. Like a movie, but she didn’t know if Duo was the hero or the villain, he swung upwards with a dark splattered baseball bat, taking the woman’s chin with more force than Relena knew how to calculate. That bat continued up, then swept back down, and it was surreal how a human head can suddenly go concave just like that, like the bone gave into the skin and it just sagged inwards. 

Duo’s growl was sandpaper over time, inhuman and Relena felt like she might be melting, just there on her hands and knees, cheerleader uniform dripping, skin shivering, and she wondered if this was what shock felt like. It was almost more romantic in the movies. 

He grabbed the pistol from the woman’s hand as he shoved her towards the dive portal and let her drop into the dark, cold water. 

Relena blinked, but didn’t know how she got to be sitting up, with a blanket around her, Duo squatting in front of her, baseball bat on his knees, those strange violet eyes studying her. Throat dry, eyes burning with tears that were just building up their nerve, she whispered, “Don’t tell my mom how I died?”

“You ain’t gon die, R. Look here. I got this here candy and I want you to eat it. And I want you to stay right here till I come back for you. Can you do that?” 

“Yes,” Relena said with every bit of good intentions she’d ever had. “I’ll stay right here!” 

He stood up, bat hanging by his side, dripping with... water... dark, thick water. Relena needed it to be water. “Good. I’ll be back.”


	5. We do today...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The combat winds down, Relena asserts herself.

Beneath 5  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

Notes: I fear this chapter might be small. 

 

The facility burned. Flames rose up over the turbulent black glass of the lake. Heero sat at a computer, completely focused on uploading the facility’s data and sending out soothing messages to the local authorities - no fire here, no, really, just a test, all good, really.... 

“Hey, ‘Ro,” Duo called from the door, a hand on the frame, a cocky grin on his face that no one else in the world could pull off. Soot smeared across that heart-shaped face, smeared a bit with blood dripping from a minor cut on his cheek. “So....”

He wanted something, and Heero’s fingers slowed on the keyboard, without fully stilling. It was those violet eyes, Heero decided. They made his heart beat a little faster, but not from fear. It was very odd. Those violet eyes made his stomach tighten in a way that felt... good. “What do you want?”

“Yeah, so,” Duo said, stepping into the doorway, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, the other nervously tapping a very dark baseball bat against the metal floor, “‘Lena didn’t stay where I told her too. She kinda saw some shit, and I locked her in the dive room. Think you could get her?”

“Yeah,” Heero said, nodding, blue eyes narrowing. That was a chore long overdue. “I’ll kill her.” 

“No!” Duo said strenuously, pointing a finger at Heero. “We will not kill her. Ally. Heero, she’s a friend. We don’t gotta kill’er... just get her to the evac boat that Trowa’s putting together. We got to get back to the school. Class starts in five hours.” 

“Fine,” Heero grunted, scowling at Duo. Movement on one of the screens drew Heero’s attention. “Hostiles gathering on the aft deck. Perhaps more than ten. Can you handle?”

“Yeah, sure,” Duo said, pulling the brim of his hat down, before turning and disappearing.

“Duo!”

His name still echoing in the metal halls, Duo peeked back, “Yeah?”

Heero’s whole heart and breath stopped for a moment, his lips twitching into a small smile. “I made you something.” 

“Oh,” Duo said, nodding, “That’s nice. Thanks, ‘Ro.”

Throat absolutely closing off, Heero grunted, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. He reached into his bag and pulled out a short black cylinder, which he tossed to do. “It’s better than a toy.”

Duo caught it, appreciated the textured rubber coating, the button that seemed to be made just for his thumb. 

“It has a fingerprint sensor,” Heero said proudly. 

“Uh,” Duo said, intrigued, as he held the device out at arm’s length and pressed the button. It extended to full length, just a little shorter than he was, but the really shiny part was the vibrantly green beam scythe that crackled into being. “Oh shit,” Duo purred. “Oh Mood! Shit! This is fantastic!”

Heero grinned, full on grin, a little innocent and a lot happy teenaged boy in that moment. “Good.”

“So, get her,” Duo said, scythe at his side, casting emerald light over his face, “Don’t fuckin’ kill her!” 

With a heavy sigh, Heero nodded. 

And so it was that Heero found himself at the dive room. It took all his strength to pry open the door because Duo seemed to have beaten in closed with that bat. That had been a pretty solid weapon. 

Relena still wore her cheerleader outfit, her hair was down now though and both it and the skirt flared out as she slowly spun in circles. It gave Heero a brief internal debate about if he could kill her if she’d gone insane. She was a risk then right? It would be for her own good. A kindness. 

Then she saw him, blue eyes filled with love and joy, as she looked him over with the same intensity that Duo reserved for food. “Heero! I love you! Will you marry me?”

“No,” Heero said. “You’re experiencing shock,” Heero supplied, eyes glancing over to the blood splatter and spray, a bit of hair and other bodily matter remained. He summoned up his best inside Quatre, “Seeing that must have been very hard.” 

While he was thinking up what to say, he wasn’t watching her. 

And so it was that he ended up with her pressed up against him, a hand with half-dried blood pushing up against his thick Japanese hair. Now his breath really stopped, his face twisting up. Suddenly he was the rabbit and she was the coyote. “I love you, Heero Yuy.” 

Heero’s inner Quatre had gone running for the safety of Trowa. His inner Duo was laughing his ass off, and inner Wufei was chanting ‘murder is an option!’. Heero stayed mission-focused, stepping politely back. “Are you intoxicated?”

“No,” Relena swore with all the honesty of someone who had been ruffied with the best of intentions. “I’ve never had a drink in my whole life! You have the most beautiful eyes in the world.” 

“Did you eat anything?”

“Dewy gave me candy! Yummy candy. He’s not so bad, really! I could marry him too!”

“No,” Heero growled, one hand curling into a fist. “You can’t.”

“I know! Only one husband! You’re my best husband!” 

Heero grunted unintelligibly and grabbed her hand, before striding out towards the meeting site. Maybe, if he was lucky, someone would shoot them both. 

Whatever she had to say, Heero blocked it out, dragging her past the carnage of their successful mission. They were in the open, a dozen feet from the aft platform when Duo’s new scythe powered to life. 

They both stared up. It was only a few steps up to that platform and they could easily see that Duo was surrounded by at least a dozen of the remaining security forces. The fire raged to the side of them, casting red and yellow light, but the green of the scythe was the brightest light, painting the people around him in shadow. It swirled as he spun it, leaving green light echoes swirling around him. They attacked. Liquid red splattered. Screams of rage and pain clawed at the light show. 

Heero and Relena stared! The light and shadow set horror on her face, lips parted, blue eyes frozen by the nightmare of death before her. The same shadow gave Heero a different freedom and his chin lifted, lips slightly parted, pupils dilating as he watched with utter adoration. 

Relena turned to look at Heero, perhaps wanting validation for her horror, only to find him staring like a love-struck virgin lost in the night. “He’s killing people,” Relena said in outrage!

Heero turned to look at her, a thin-lipped smile, and veritable hearts in his eyes, “Yeah.” 

“It’s wrong! All people are valuable!”

Heero tried rummaging through his head to find some rebuttal to that, but all he got was a grunt and an actual gasp as she ran forward into the melee.

Even he was not brave enough to get in Duo’s way during out and out combat. That was certifiable suicide. “Wait!”

She ran up those stairs and slipped on blood, sliding in under the swing of Duo’s scythe, like she’d planned it, which Heero did think was pretty cool. For a tiny flicker of a moment, he imagined Duo and Relena becoming a romantic couple and he didn’t like that at all! The thought made his temples hurt. He’d kill them both! 

That wasn’t a reasonable thought. He took a deep breath and recognized that killing Duo wasn’t an option. 

Duo made his mind wander though, which was dangerous, so maybe for the sake of the mission, maybe he ought to kill him. 

When he looked up, Duo and Relena were screaming at each other, pointing and gesturing at each other, with two guards on the ground between them. Both the guards had their hands bound behind their backs and when one tried to inch worm away, Duo pressed his boot down between her shoulder blades, and screamed at Relena, “We don’t take prisoners!”

“Well, today we do!” She screamed right back, up in his face, her nose almost touching his and the light of his sycthe giving them both a dangerous halo. 

“Fine,” Trowa said, wedging himself between them. “Today we do. These are the last two alive,” he asked Duo. 

“Yeah.” Duo said, glowering as Trowa taped the captive’s mouths. “Fine! How are we gonna keep them from blowing our cover, uh? Relena? You wanna be a fucking felon? You know this shit we just did is ... they execute fuckers for it!” 

“I’ll think of something,” Relena screamed as close to Duo’s face as she could get. 

“You fucking do that then,” Duo screamed back! 

Then they both spun on their heels, arms across their chests. 

Heero suddenly wanted popcorn. He wasn’t exactly sure what popcorn was, but he’d seen it mentioned in memes and it seemed appropriate. 

Wufei and Quatre came running up, only to kind of skid to a stop. “Why are they alive,” Quatre asked in a sweet kind of way, gentle like someone who wants the crab to die before going into the boiling water, but still wants to eat the poor bastard. 

“Apparently,” Duo roared, “We TaKe PrISONerS now!”

“They’re my prisoners,” Relena said firmly, patting the woman’s arm. “I’m not going ot let anything happen to you!”

“They’re not pets,” Quatre said gently, hand behind his back, a foot long serrated combat blade hidden there. “Maybe we’ll just leave them here.” He smiled sweetly. “I’ll just have a nice little talk with them and everything will be splendid!”

Relena held up her pointer finger, mouth open for a moment, waiting for the words to catch up. “I know you! Show me your hands!”

“Why Miss Relena! Do you doubt my intentions?”

“They’re getting in the boat with us!” 

The man started shaking his head vigorously. 

“See? They want to stay here,” Quatre said, making sure to tuck his blade back in the sheath, so he could show both hands? “See? Both hands?”

The man started trying to peel the tape on his mouth off against the woman’s shoulder and she was trying to help him. He succeeded before Trowa could stop him. “There’s a monster in the lake! We’re all better off here! If we go out there, we’re dead.”

Duo rolled his eyes. “You want to know what dead is? Dead is having to get into a school uniform and make English Comp by 9 am after shutting down this bullshit!” 

 

“It’s smart!” The man insisted. “I don’t want anything more to do with the fuckers who made that shit! If you let me go, I’ll never tell anyone!”

“See?” Relena said cheerfully.

Then something hit the platform, shaking it hard, knocking them all their knees.

“Airlift, maybe?”

“Too late,” Heero pronounced. “We have to take the boat or we’re all getting arrested.” 

“Boat it is,” Duo said firmly. “We’ll just tell the water deer it’s free and it’ll leave us alone!”

“I’m sure that’ll work fine,” Quatre sarcasmed. “‘Water deer’ are so reasonable.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo goes to get his sphere. Prisoners fight back. Quatre has a fit over Duo's chemistry skills.

Beneath 6  
by Duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing  
Warning: I love technology so they’re always getting shit they didn’t have in the war. 

 

“Fine,” Quatre said, eyeing the two prisoners. “This time, we take prisoners. I will arrange for their ‘accommodation’. 02, you had that experimental craft, the bubble? That would take all of us, right? We can use that to get back across the lake.”

“I deployed it underwater, tethered it down there to keep her safe.” Duo pointed at Relena with a shrug. “Like that worked like shit.”

“Well,” Quatre said, an edge of elegant irritation in his voice, “As you've conducted yourself so that you are positively covered in blood, why don’t you just go down and get it?”

“I’ll go,” Heero volunteered, squaring his shoulders.

Relena, who was still wearing a wet cheerleader uniform, sighed while staring at Heero with lovesick blue eyes. “You really like him, don’t you?”

Heero grimaced and pulled away, even though he had already moved a few feet from her. “I’m just stronger and a better agent to get things done.” 

“Fuck you,” Duo snapped. “I don’t need your help!”

Heero leaned into the growl. “You do! You’re weak and there’s a hostile life form in the water!”

“He’s afraid you’ll get hurt,” Relena said, smiling adoringly. “That’s so adorable!”

How she had gotten close to both of them, neither of them knew. How Heero had gotten close enough to growl at Duo, Duo wasn’t sure. Both of the boys turned to Relena though. “Shut up!” 

“Don’t be mad,” she purred. “I want you both!” 

Heero and Duo both stood there, mouths open, eyes wide. 

“Alright,” Quatre roared, “Duo Maxwell! What did you give her?”

Duo touched his fingertips, both hands arching, to his chest, mouth open wide as he drew a deep breath, “Why you think I gave her something!? Maybe she brought her own MDMA!? Did you ever think of that?”

“You gave her MDMA,” Quatre snarled, then sighed. “What’s wrong with you?”

Sheepish, Duo’s shoulders hunched. “I didn’t want her getting PTSD or anything?”

“You mean because you beat someone to death with a baseball bat, in front of her,” Wufei sneered. “She’s weak if she develops issues from that, but you really should get a sword, barbarian.” 

Duo huffed, arms folded across his chest. “Classist bastard. Heero gave me a cool new scythe! Wanna see?”

“Wait,” Trowa said, holding up a hand.

They all turned to him. 

“Where did you get the MDMA and do you have any more?”

“I made it in the school’s lab, and not on me. I didn’t know you wanted some, sorry.” 

“We don’t do drugs!” Quatre nearly shouted. “Intoxicants are forbidden!”

Everyone stared at him, even the prisoners. 

Duo’s face had gone long, sour. His lips pursed. “Does it help that I sold most of it?”

“NO,” Quatre said. “Drugs are very bad for you!”

Duo waved both hands, “No, no, I was very careful. I used the formula Howard gave me. It’s really safe, just don’t take too much.”

Quatre smacked his own face. “Just no. No more drugs. Duo, can you go get your bubble? We need to get out of here.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Duo said, shifting out of his backpack, which he held out to Heero. “I’ll be back, ‘kay?”

Heero’s angry blue eyes filled Duo with a weird sense of comfort, acceptance, and a feeling of being wanted. He smiled back before feeling stupid and embarrassed, got get away from that feeling, he took a run at the edge of the platform and went off, feet first. Heero wrapped his arms around Duo’s backpack for a moment, staring over the edge into the dark water.

Relena stared over the edge with him. “That water is very dangerous,” she pronounced wisely.

“He has many skills,” Heero hissed, grudgingly.  
“Like making illegal drugs,” Quatre snapped. “We have to be better than that!”

The female prisoner growled, “So drugs are bad, but murder is okay?”

“It’s not murder,” Quatre said, “This was a military action brought about by your group making bioweapons which OZ was prepared to use against civilian populations was an acceptable behavior. I find little value in either of your lives and only my friend’s concern is going to keep you breathing. So, perhaps, being quiet, and grateful, would be in order.”

“You’re all fucking children. You don’t understand enough about the world to know what kind of harm you’re causing.”

Trowa clicked the safety off on his pistol. “You really should be quiet.” Menace frosted his words, made his very slight smile anything but comforting.

“Don’t worry,” Relena promised. “He’s very nice. He won’t hurt you.” 

Trowa just kept smiling. 

And no one was properly watching the other prisoner. Consequently, no one saw him slip free of his restraints. 

Everyone saw him strike the heel of his palm against the underside of Trowa’s jaw. 

Relena kind of chirped and threw her arms out while standing in front of Heero. “Stop!”

He kicked Trowa, hard, rolling him off the platform and into the water. 

Quatre held his hands up, but the calculations going on behind his eyes only spend into overdrive. “This is not going to work like you think it might.”

<><>

 

Make new technology, Duo! Not that technology, Duo! Protect Relena Duo! Not like that! 

If fuckers didn’t make up their minds, Duo was going to have something for them! In his mind he could hear Quatre complaining about not that kind of something! 

Earth was full of so many stupid rules! And it had deer! The only really good about lakes was that he was pretty sure that the damn deer couldn’t swim. They walked around with bone swords on their heads and he didn’t know that they didn’t breath fire. They fucking well might! 

It was easy enough to reach the sphere he’d left Relena in. If anything, the water felt more like home than the rest of the planet did. It wasn’t exactly weightless, but it was closer. When he touched the sphere, it gave like a pod of water. 

She hadn’t closed the hatch behind her. 

Flooded. She flooded his transport. Be nice to Relena, they said. It’ll be good for you, they said. 

That also meant there wasn’t any waiting air in the damn thing BECAUSE it was FLOODED. 

It responded to his handprint though and he slipped into the small airlock. It wasn’t made of a solid material, but very fine net of gundanium and gold, overlaid with beam plasma where he’d gotten the particles to vibrate just right to make what looked like glass and felt like a thick vinyl. He was terribly proud of it. 

Touching the wall lovingly, it light up and presented a virtual screen and keyboard for him. Maybe if he’d given her a movie to watch, maybe she would have sat her happy ass where he put her and then he’d still have his after mission candy. 

He was so focused on figuring out how to expel the water, while getting himself some air in the process, that he utterly failed to notice the great big, very big eye staring in at him. He was waist deep in water when he did notice. The eye had to be as big as his head and it saw him seeing it. The mouth opened and it had teeth that looked like those swords Wu was always wanting him to embrace. 

“Shit.” Typing slowly, least the movement tip his hand or something, he connected to Quatre’s earpiece. “Q, there’s something big in the water and it’s smart. It looks hungry.”

“It’s just a fish, Duo,” Quatre hissed. “We have a situation up here.” 

“Hi Fishy,” Duo said, waving at the very, very large fish. 

It said hello back by giving a very solid bite down on his sphere. 

“Shit,” Duo screamed as his little tech bubble popped out of the fish’s mouth and went rolling towards the surface. There was nothing to hold onto and he sloshed like a tea bag at a Boston Tea Party. It was all he could do to get the lights out on his display and hope Mr. Chomp Chomp wasn’t finding him some other way. 

Once he was floating on the surface, he called up another virtual terminal, warmed the water he was laying in, and just laid there for a couple of minutes. He was deeply tired of cold! 

Still, he finished expelling all the water, caused the inside of the sphere to rearrange so there was some relatively comfortable seating, then grabbed the edge of the platform with extended hooks, before opening the hatch and generating some stairs. 

Grinning like he’d just saved the day, he ran up the stairs to the platform. In total, he’d been gone less than fifteen minutes. The female prisoner was dead. Relena was sobbing. Trowa was missing. Heero and Quatre were working on a solution. The prisoner with the gun spun to face Duo, who hadn’t been as quiet as he could have been. The weapon discharged. Duo felt the hit against his shoulder. 

His face twisted up, nose wrinkling. “That sucks!” 

“Duo!” Relena yelled, running to him, even as he failed to feel his knees. Head light, he just kind of floated towards the platform. 

On the upside, Relena didn’t see Heero beat the second prisoner. There’s always an upside.


	7. seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they get into the bubble, get underway - things are about to get worse.

Beneath 7  
by duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing  
Warning: I just want something sweet and loving tonight, so that’s where this is going. 

 

What if I wanted something for me? What if I didn’t want anymore violence?

 

As he went back, his immediate plan was to fall in to the bubble. There were medical supplies and it wasn’t wet. 

What he got was wet. 

When you’re fifteen and you slip on your own blood as you’re trying to fall in a useful direction, but you make a big splash, like a clumsy idiot and the guy who you like sees you do it, it feels like the end of the world. It wasn’t like the world hadn’t ended several times already for Duo Maxwell, but as he went over the side, arms windmilling, mouth open right up until nasty lake water rushed in, he was sure that this was it, the real end of the world. 

What he didn’t see was Heero disarm the prisoner with enough force that they were lucky to have a prisoner left at all. Just to make sure that the restraints were going to work right, Heero broke both his thumbs. When he looked up at shocked Relena, Heero was thinking she was next, but Quatre stepped in, pulling her a bit away. She just kept smiling at Heero like he’d done all that to protect her and he was going to be king of the world. 

Heero dropped Duo’s backpack as he was running to the edge of the platform to go in after him. 

“He can swim,” Relena yelled, before looking back to Quatre, with a smile. “Heero loves me.”

Quatre took her firmly by the shoulders and looked firmly into her eyes. “No, Miss Relena. He doesn’t. He’s a boy raised in a lab and edited to be nearly a machine. He doesn’t love anyone.”

She leaned a little closer, her patting his cheeks lightly. “You’re wrong.”

“You’re intoxicated. Trowa!” Quatre yelled, looking over Relena’s shoulder, “Wait! I want him!”

Trowa was back out of the water, pissed, had a fist full of shirt, the other hand on the prisoner’s belt, as he hauled him to the edge of the platform. Trowa paused, hair wet and clinging to his face, expression completely murderous. 

Relena actually moved to hide behind Quatre. 

“Seriously! I want him. He was very emotional about not giving up secrets. He’s got secrets. I want them!” 

Brows drawn down, nostrils flaring, Trowa’s lips twitched. “Then I can kill him?”

Quatre nodded. 

“That would be murder,” Relena protest. 

“Yes,” Trowa said, “And a war crime. BE. Quiet.”

Relena squished down a bit behind Quatre, just glaring over his shoulder. 

In the water, Duo closed his eyes and let the water pull him down. It had always just been a matter of time. He’d done his part. He’d done everything he could. He could feel the faint warm of his own blood against his skin, fleeting before the cold of the water stole both the warmth and the blood away. It was okay this way. 

The hand that grabbed his shirt wasn’t gentle. A shockwave of pain stole a minute of his time and when he was back, a strong arm was wrapped around him, holding him as close. Being pulled back up to the surface felt a lot shittier than slowly sinking into it. When they broke the surface, Heero squeezed him and water vomited out just fine. 

This was the worst fucking day ever. 

The way Heero watched him though made him warm. Blue eyes studied him carefully, intensely, before Heero gave him another squeeze. It got him no more water out, but Duo was holding his breath. Bleeding out, frozen cold, he was still a teenage boy being held by his most powerful crush. Heero’s brows drew down, then he pinched Duo’s nose, touched his lips to his, and blew. 

Great big neon thoughts went off in Duo’s overwrought brain that he’d probably remember till the day he actually died and the marquee read, “Heero is Kissing ME!”

Lips-to-lips didn’t last long before Heero drew back and gave him another squish. He spit a bit more water, coughed up a bit more, then squeaked. “Hi!” 

“Good.” Heero said, deadpan, “You’re alive.” 

“And also with you,” Duo said, a little dizzy and confused, really hoping that Heero just wouldn’t notice that he was hard. 

Letting Heero drag him back through the water to the platform was even better than sinking into the darkness. They were going to get married! Heero would wear white! They’d get a housedeer! No head swords though! 

Quatre and Trowa each grabbed a shoulder, then his arms and hauled him up out of the water. As they pulled him up, arms spread out, he imagined he was Jesus rising from Sheol with the freed spirits behind him. 

Then he was laying cold and wet on the metal platform with Relena poking at his side, with his shirt up. “There’s a hole! He’s bleeding!” 

Duo had no more fucking patience. “You touch it again, you’ll be bleeding!” 

“Rude, much!” She pulled back, shaking her hand as if that would get the blood off. 

“We need to go,” Quatre said, taking charge. “Wufei, help Heero get Duo into the sphere. Trowa, don’t kill my prisoner, but get him in and secure. Miss Relena, if you would please?” Quatre motioned for her to go down the stairs into the bubble.

“I’m never doing this again,” she said with a huff as she navigated down into the sphere. “Oh it’s warm!” 

Trowa and Heero both had murder eyes, but Quatre waved a finger at them. He needed Miss Relena too. There was a plan and it didn’t include killing assets. 

Heero lifted Duo in his arms, glaring at Wufei as Wufei moved closer, but it wasn’t like Wufei wasn’t glaring too because he didn’t want to touch the bleeding soon-to-be-corpse that probably wasn’t going to be quiet anytime soon. “I have him,” Heero said, threateningly. 

“Splendid,” Quatre said, motioning them into the sphere. “We are running short of time. Let’s move quickly.” 

Trowa was really not sure Quatre’s prisoner was going to survive. Even if he did, he was little more than cut flowers until Quatre turned him over to Trowa, but once he had him into Duo’s nifty little bit of probably cancer causing tech, he did his best to apply first aid. So focused was he that he forgot Duo probably wanted some morphine too. 

Once they were in, the sphere closed on it’s own, disconnecting them from the platform and taking them under the surface of the lake. Duo’s plans usually involved some stealth. At first that was very helpful and a big relief. The reinforcements that were probably on their way were unlikely to find them. 

Then they realized that Duo was unconscious and he was the only one who knew how to drive it. Duo’s medical kit did not include smelling salts. 

“Well, now I know what kind of gift to give him,” Quatre grumbled, settling back against the rather comfortable seat. “I’m ought to be surprised there are no more useful drugs in the kit.”

Trowa motioned for Heero to pull up Duo’s shirt so he could apply a blood stop patch. “Chemistry is a useful skill.” 

“You smell nice,” Relena said, snuggling up against Quatre, head on his shoulder. 

Quatre was rigid, eyes wide, looking sideways at her, head back. “Thank you, Miss Relena.” 

Heero gestured at Trowa, who understood and sat back to accept Duo into his lap. 

“Two princesses in this night,” Wufei complained under his breath. 

Heero turned to face the sphere and pressed his hand to the surface. A virtual keyboard and screen appeared. “I’m going to set a destination near the school, but out of reach of surveillance. I am going to take Duo somewhere to recover. It might be a day or two until we return.”

“Turn out the lights,” Quatre hissed. 

Heero didn’t ask, just did. 

A moment later a very large body glided past them, set them to spinning like a ball running down a dragon’s back.


	8. eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena has a plan.

Beneath 8  
by duointherain

disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing  
Notes: @.@ I did not see that coming.

 

When the spinning slowed, everyone wanted to project that the vomit wasn’t theirs, but it was so mixed together that there wasn’t any real plausibility to anyone’s denial. Spinning very slightly, they floated along under the surface of the lake. 

Trowa held Quatre close, arms around him. Wufei stood on the bench, his hands pressed to the curve of the bubble above them, wedged in with all the stress a scholar turned warrior could ever have. If he were glass, he would have shattered. Duo’s head rested against Heero’s shoulder, who sat there holding him as if unexpected roller coaster rides were just too boring to worry about. The prisoner lay on the floor and in his case unconscious might have been the best option. 

In the center of the sphere, Relena stood, legs wide, hands on her hips, silky cheerleader blond looking more like a lion’s mane. “I’m going to call my mother!” She said it with perfect clarity and confidence like it was the most obvious and most effective answer to being lost in a lake and chased by a waterdeer. 

Quatre’s lips twitched, as if words just couldn’t quite form any kind of coherence response. 

Trowa patted Quatre’s shoulder, rubbing his back, because he didn’t have any time for any of that nonsense. 

Heero muttered murder in Japanese. 

Wufei just stood there, braced in place, but a small adoring smile stealing onto thin disillusioned lips. 

The only thing was, she meant it. 

“Mama,” she said, a hand over her face, phone to her ear as she started to cry, “Mama, I did a thing and I’m not sorry, but I’m in trouble.” 

The rest of them just stared. 

“I need you to come get me, please? My friend is hurt and there’s a very big fish with teeth as tall as I am. Yes, I’m okay. No, no one hurt me. My friends protected me, but Mama, I have to make things right.” 

She stood there crying softly, tears cutting trails through the dirt on her face. “There’s so much wrong in the world, Mama! I’ve got to fix it. I didn’t realize! I didn’t know, but I’m going to make it right.” 

Wufei’s heart had gone into some kind of cocoon when Meiran died. He hadn’t even felt it like that. It was just what a man did, to get up and move on, and carry on with honor. He’d never thought that sunlight would erupt from the cocoon, especially not over a blond rich girl in a short skirt and ponytails. 

“Yeah, Mama, I know. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to make the world right, the colonies too. All people deserve to be safe. Human rights are for everyone.”

Quatre sat up a little more, brows drawing down as he watched her. 

The light of the phone was the only light in their bubble and it cast her face in shadows and halo. 

She closed the call, set her small phone back into her bra. Her lips pursed up, blue eyes narrowed and focused as she thought about how to take over the world. “My mother’s people will be here in 30 minutes. Have we stopped Duo’s bleeding? What medical supplies do we have?” Then she went to her knees, to start digging through Duo’s supplies on her own. “Does anyone know how to set an IV? We also need to first aid on this man,” she said, meaning the prisoner. 

Wufei stepped down from where he’d braced himself. “I can do it.”

She smiled at him and the sunshine in his heart became its very own sun.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relena had a vision for how the world should work... it might not work out as well as she'd have thought. Heero gets greater clarity. Wufei gets confused.

The pic probably belongs with Chapter 10 or 11.   
  
Beneath 9

by duointherain

 

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

  
  
  
  


There was only one of them that would have voiced some kind of opinion and that was Duo and he was unconscious.  Heero held him closer, petting his shoulder almost like Duo had become his own personal plushie. In a very slight echo of a schizophrenic break, Heero could hear what Duo would have to say about Relena calling her mother and it went somewhat along the lines of, “What’chu mean you calling yur mom? Heero, why ain’t you killed her?”  “What’chu think she’s gonna do?” 

 

In Heero’s mind, he could clearly see Duo smashing Relena’s face into the side of the bubble, blood dripping down, then he realized that that was him, just his own fantasy. 

 

Relena smiled at him, her blue eyes sparkling as she put her hand over the phone for a moment. “She’s sending help!” 

 

Heero’s jaw shifted to the side just a bit, blue eyes narrowing, as he tried ot figure out if he could kill both Relena and her mother at the same time. With her mother being told things that ought not to be shared, that seemed like a prudent thing to do at this point. 

 

“Mom? No... no I can’t just call Emergency Services! No, I don’t have a head injury! Mom! I’m not in Paris! What do you mean my GPS says I’m at the Effiel Tower? I am not in Paris!”

 

That’s when Heero knew, without even a drop of doubt, that he loved Duo Maxwell. He didn’t think about what that meant or what that could mean, only that love felt good and he liked it.  In that moment, his whole world changed. He’d been fighting because they told him to. Now he wanted to fight so that he could make a world where he could make Duo happy. It was more than just wanting to give Duo cool custom weapons or listen to his breathing as he slept, and in that moment, Heero found himself wanting to live. 

 

“Relena,” Quatre said with his I-rule-the-world voice, “Duo’s specialty is stealth. His bubble is going to redirect your signal. Just tell her you’ve pranked her.” 

 

“No,” Relena nearly shouted at Quatre, “I will never lie to Mom!” 

 

Quatre looked over at Heero, as if wanting his support, for him to say something reasonable. 

 

Heero smiled stupidly. “I’m in love.” 

 

Relena glowed. Quatre smoldered. 

 

“Woman,” Wufei said, sounding every bit the misogynist Imperial professor he someday dreamed of being, “You are out of your depth. You are weak and stupid. Sit down and be quiet!”

 

She pointed a finger at him, blue eyes sparking, “Don’t you dare speak to me like that you pampered aristocrat! I don’t see you being helpful at all!” 

 

Wufei’s mouth dropped open. For a moment his fists clenched, then he had his safety harness up and was on his feet. “How dare you speak to me like that! You are a woman!” 

 

She leaned into his rage, nose wrinkling, “And you’re an idiot! At least I’m trying to do something! What did you do?”

 

“I killed fifteen targets and downloaded the secondary server! What did you do? You called your mom like the weakling you are!”

 

The emotion bound them to each other like a rubber band that was going to break and snap hard any moment. Quatre just sat there, staring, mouth open slightly. In that moment, he completely forgot they were lost on a very large lake with a very, very large bioweapon with huge teeth.

 

Trowa caught his eye, winked, then made a heart with both hands. 

 

Quatre sat up a little straighter, lips squishing up as he stared at Relena and Wufei’s dominance dance. “Oh,” he said softly, then nodded at Trowa. 

 

Heero muttered death threats in Japanese, but Duo was still unconscious and not one else was bothered to notice. 

 

“I saved at least one life and I’m trying to save yours too! Maybe you don’t want your life saved?” Relena held the phone back to her ear “Mom? Are you still there? Mom?”

 

When she got no reply, she pulled her phone around to look at it. It had a completely blank screen, and a touch of a crack on the corner. “My phone is cracked!”

 

Wufei was still leaning into her space, brows drawn down over dark eyes. In a mock civil voice, he hissed, “It probably got water damage while you were trying to drown yourself! You have no business in battle.”

 

“You don’t know anything about me,” Relena screamed back. “I care about all people! I just don’t think killing people is the best option! Dead people can not improve themselves!”

 

If Wufei could have turned into a dragon, he would have. “Neither can weak people!”

 

She gasped, hand drawing back for a slap before her rational mind could catch up. Her hand swung. He held his grown. Reason caught her at the last moment and her slap turned into a caress of his cheek that shocked them both. She was close enough, leaning in closer as she spoke. “I am not weak, Chang Wufei.” 

 

Wherever their thoughts might have gone, Mr. Chompy had other ideas. He rose up out of the dark water, jaws wide, and he descended on the bubble with great enthusiasm. His teeth may not have got any penetration, but there was enough strength in his jaws to hold the bubble as he dove, pulling the little faintly glowing sphere into the dark watery depths.

 

Relena and Wufei were not strapped in and bounced, first into Quatre’s lap, then back onto Wufei’s seat with Relena in his lap. He grabbed harness and held on with one hand, holding her with his other arm. 

 

Chompy was fast. Very quickly they were deeper than Relena though she could swim to the surface. Cut off from her mom and all the resources she’d used to get through life, relying on the strong arm of a near enemy, she suddenly had a deep impression of her own weakness. At one point they were upside down and the only think that kept her from bouncing like a cat toy was Wufei’s hold on her. The world was good. There was good in all people. She turned to him, her arms going around his neck and she imagined wrapping him in love and gentle support, in friendship. 

 

Quatre, who was sitting on the other side and had better vision than one might give him credit for, watched Wufei’s face go from stoic hero to the universal too shocked to speak face that could translate across species. His face turned red and nothing made much sense for him in that moment. 

 

Eventually Chompy’s grip failed and the bubble shot forward. It bounced hard against some rocks, ricocheted into some other rocks, then wedged against something that held it tight. 

 

“Full lights on,” Quatre said, his palm against the sphere. The sphere acted like it hadn’t heard a damn thing. 

 

Heero pressed his palm to the wall. “Full lights on.” 

 

The lights came on. They’d fall into the opening of a cave, maybe. Rocks rose all around them. Above them Chompy couldn’t quite fit his whole head into the crevice, but his tongue reached out, flickering over the bubble, leaving a trail of slightly blue slime. 

 

Relena pulled away from Wufei. She stood up on her seat, straining to reach the arch of the bubble where the tongue was licking. 

 

“That’s not a good idea,” Trowa hissed. 

 

Quatre could hear the impending action in Trowa’s voice and waved him back.  “Miss Relena, please don’t encourage the beast.” 

 

“There’s good in all life, even this creature. It’s smart. Maybe it has some human DNA. We need to help it.” 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when everything is looking the most bleak, things seem to get worse. Not everything is as it seems though.

Beneath 10

 

The lake really wasn’t that deep. It wasn’t the portal to some fairy kingdom, but there they were, nonetheless, Duo’s little stealth bubble wedged between some rocks with a waterdragon licking at the edge of their space hopefully and a Northern European princess staring up at the monster like in a fairytale. 

“Quatre,” Trowa started gently only to have Quatre glare at him. 

“No sugar,” Quatre snapped, clearly at the very end of his social spoons. 

Trowa shrugged. “I know you want the prisoner, but if we expel him, get the fish to chase it, then I can exit the transport and dislodge it, so we can get going again. He gets eaten, I don’t. That is acceptable to you?”

Quatre lifted his chin, blue eyes blinking as he considered. “Acceptable. We still have Duo’s diving mask, yes?” 

“Yes,” Heero agreed. 

Then Relena spun around on the, fists tight at her side and the great slightly glowing eye of the beast like crooked halo behind her. “We will not! What is wrong with the four of you! It is not okay to hurt other people!”

Heero held Duo a little tighter and tried to ignore how much of Duo’s blood was pooling on the seat. The effort to not think about it made it much harder not to think about. Duo was dying. “Shut up,” he growled. “You don’t know anything about the world or how things actually work. You’re a spoiled poodle!”

“At least I’m not a rabid mut,” she snarled back, eyes on Duo, clearly unaware of how badly the akita holding the mut wanted to rip out her diamond collar throat. Her own moral compass kicked in just in time. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that, but we can not use another person as if he were a side of beef.”

“A side of beef would be valuable,” Trowa said wistfully. “I don’t know how long Duo’s little toy will keep us safe. We need to do something. We need to do something more than call your mother, Miss Relena.” 

“If we wake Duo up, he might know how to make this ship go fast enough to get away from the fish,” Relena suggested. 

Heero grunted, moved bloody fingers to Duo’s throat. “No pulse.” 

“Oh,” Relena said before slumping back down in her seat.  
Quatre leaned his head back against the curve of the bubble and sighed deeply. “There are costs to things, Miss Relena. Duo was brave and strong. He understood that could lose his life while fighting for everyone’s freedom.” 

“That’s wrong,” Relena said, face clenching up as she fought against tears. “Freedom belongs to all of us! Human rights are inviolate!” 

Head resting against the bubble, Quatre closed his eyes. “That’s not the world we live in.”

“It will be,” Relena said with conviction. “Violence is not the path we will take to get there.”

They all looked at her like she’d suddenly started speaking in tongues, but their expressions slowly paled and turned to fear. 

She scowled, then a chill touched her shoulder and slowly moved up the back of her neck. The chill reached all the way into her belly, down her arms, like death itself had caressed her. She jumped up, stumbled over the unconscious prisoner and nearly fell on Heero and Duo before Wufei caught her arm and pulled her to his side, as he moved forward just a little to shield her. 

In the darkness of the water, the giant fish had been replaced by a corpse pale man with shoulder length blond hair that floated around his face. His green eyes watched all of them, in turn, a predator much more motivated than that fish had ever been. He clawed his fingers along the outside of the bubble and even though they couldn’t hear it, it still made their hair stand on end. 

“What is it,” Relena said, hands on Wufei’s shoulders as she ducked a little behind him. 

“I don’t know,” Wufei said, 

“It’s Death,” Quatre whispered. 

The man wore no visible diving gear, carried no visible weapons. His fingers teased and tugged at the edge of the bubble, pulling up an O ring. He pulled a rope out of the darkness behind him and tied it off. Then he gave them Duo’s smile, his whole expression suddenly and without any warning had become cheerful. 

Quatre’s hand reached out to find Trowa’s hand and hold it tight. 

The man backed away, disappearing into the darkness of the lake. He had two legs, but he moved so comfortably, powerfully in the water, that Quatre had to fight off the idea that he was some kind of mer-creature. 

Almost immediately following the man’s disappearance, the bubble moved, towed free from the rocks it had been wedged between. 

“Maybe your other sent them,” Heero said without any edge of kindness.  
Very quickly, they were taken into a vessel of some kind. There wasn’t enough light or familiarity to get any idea of who had them or what kind of vessel it was. It reminded Heero of the stealth technology that Duo had, but only if what Duo had was made by a child. 

When the lights came on the bubble seemed to be in a sweet daytime forest. The bubble contracted into the small pocket sized sphere that Duo had produced it from. Wufei, Trowa, and Quatre circled Relena and Heero with Duo in his arms as best as they could. The space didn’t smell like a forest or anything earthly. There was not breeze. Nothing moved. 

Then a woman and a man walked towards them. Very briefly, Quatre wondered if Duo had drugged them all. Considering Duo was dead, that didn’t seem very charitable. 

It was the same blond man, but his hair was dry. He wore a similar type of all over body armor as the woman, though his was more scratched up than hers. She was blonde as well, but more of a dirty blonde. She was plain looking, the kind of face one might struggle to remember when she wasn’t there. Her eyes locked with Heero’s. “Give him to me.” 

“Why,” Heero demanded, holding Duo’s still body tighter. 

“I want to repair him,” she said, “and it will make him unhappy if I have to hurt any of you.” 

“Who are you,” Quatre asked. “Are you his family?”

“Yes,” she said. “You will all be released safely. We have been searching for him for a long time. We will not hurt him.” 

“You’re too late,” Heero said, sinking down to his knees. “It’s too late.” 

“Maybe for you,” she snapped, eyes rolling. “This one? Is he important,” she asked, pointing to Quatre’s prisoner. 

“Yes,” Relena said. “All people are important.”

The woman kind of leaned a little, violet eyes widening, her nose twitching. 

“He’s my prisoner,” Quatre said firmly. “He is important. Can you help him?”

“Yes.” The woman squatted down. Light tendrils, like curving, swaying lightening extended from her fingers, then sank into the man’s skin. Almost immediately, the man’s color normalized, his breathing deepened and stabilized. Visible bruising disappeared. 

Quatre went to his knees, a hand checking the prisoner’s pulse. “Your technology is amazing!” 

She only had eyes for Heero though. “Give him to me.” 

With tear filled eyes, Heero held Duo a little tighter, crushing him to him. “Please don’t take him away.” 

“He will be free to return to you,” she said, irritated. 

“Can I stay with him, please?”

The woman scowled, glaring at Heero like a stare down contest. He refused to blink or look away. “You’re afraid of us.” 

“Yes,” Heero said. 

“Fine, you can stay,” she said. “Joel, see the rest of them home. Don’t hurt them.” 

Joel gave a long suffering groan. “Fine, but I’m going hunting afterwards.”

“Acceptable.”

Heero pushed back up to his feet, shifting Duo so his head rested against Heero’s shoulder.

“Oh this one,” the woman said, pointing to the prisoner. “put him in the brig. Mr. Winner, you can have him back when you have the facilities to hold him.” 

“How will I reach you,” Quatre asked, already adapting, thinking of ways all this technology could be really useful. 

“We’ll be in touch.” 

<><>

The very next thing Relena knew - she was waking up in her own bed, well rested and in a cheerful mood. The night before seemed like an exciting, but strange, dream. Her phone was on the charger by her bed, and she fluffed her pillows, leaned back against it and started to check her messages. She had seven voice messages from her mother, all of which were some variant of ‘call me right now!’. Phone laying on her blankets, she rubbed her face. It was all going to take a little time to think about. 

Aliens? Monsters? The nearly drowning was clearly very exciting. Heero was such a good man, caring for his friend like that!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heero POV, no one would likely believe them if he told them.

Beneath 11  
by duointherain

disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

 

They’d been under the lake. Not deep enough for any kind of pressure concerns, but Heero was absolutely sure he’d have felt some kind of repercussion from the approach, however slow, of such a large vessel. He wasn’t even sure a vessel of this size could have fit in the lake, but then, he admitted, he wasn’t sure that it had. 

From Duo’s bubble, Heero had stepped into what seemed like an airlock to him, but it was long, well lit, and clean on some kind of storybook-movie kind of level, like things just weren’t like that in real life. 

The woman moved a little too weightless, a little too graceful, like she was a dancer most of the time and only bothered with them and the lab coat she was wearing out of some kind of chore obligation. The man next to her, still quietly arguing with her in a familiar way that suggested they were a mated pair, on some level, but not really in the same way that other people he’d observed were. 

The space was quiet too, now that he thought about it, like a movie with the sound turned off. Then a drop of Duo’s blood hit the floor. Heero’s lower lip tightened even as his insides twisted up and his eyes started to leak. “He’s dead.” 

“Nonsense,” the woman said, pausing to look back over her shoulder, “But you’re making a mess on my floor. Come on.” She gestured for him to come along. 

Now Heero could deal with an order. He followed along after her, ignoring that Duo was literally cooling off in his arms. “How do you know Duo,” he asked as they left the long hall-like airlock. 

The following hall looked like something out of a movie, stone floor, arched doorways, blue sky visible through Romanesque windows. “What is this place?” 

“You’re just all questions, aren’t you,” Martha said, holding open another door. “Come on along, Kobayashi Daiji.” 

“My name is Heero Yuy,” Heero said firmly, even as he set the body that had been Duo down on the offered medical table. Only then did Heero realize that the blond man who had been with them was just gone. He hadn’t seen him leave or heard any doors - the man had just disappeared. “Are you with OZ?” 

Martha’s head pulled back, a little like a cobra and Heero wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to bite him. “Human organizations do not interest me. Aristotle is my son. Now if you could just step back from my work table. I’m not quite ready to provide you medical treatment yet.”

“I don’t need any medical treatment,” Heero said. He signed hard, almost like being punched in the gut as he stepped away from the table. “He was my friend. He was strong and brave and a good warrior.” Heero just kind of sank down to the floor, eyes focusing on Duo’s hand where it hung over the table, blood still bright red as if it were still useful, still living. “He was my first friend.” 

“If you get anymore melodramatic, I’ll sedate you,” she said, face without emotion, until she posed a smile for him. She held the pose for a moment, but his look of fear and unease probably did her effort in. “Do you want to help me repair him?”

“He’s not a machine,” Heero nearly screamed, feeling like his emotions were about to have a meltdown without even giving any warning as to the core overheating first. “He’s a human being.” 

She stared at him, face smooth and completely without emotion. “Everything is some kind of machine, ‘Heero’.” 

“He’s not,” Heero promised, slumping forward a bit before wiping tears and snot. “He’s not a machine.” 

“Go to sleep,” she said, her hand held up. When she brought her fingers together, his eyes closed, no matter how hard he tried to keep them open. 

 

<><><>

The thing with Heero is that he had had enough sedatives in his time. It’s possible to put him out, but hard to keep him that way. When he woke, he was still on the floor where he’d been sitting, just slumped over to the side. Blue eyes slitted open, very slightly, as he consciously tried not to move or even breath too much. 

Duo floated above the table, naked, hair unbound and flowing around him, not unlike the tendrils that had come from the woman’s fingers when she healed the prisoner. 

“I know you’re awake,” she said, a slight edge of amusement in her voice. “He’s breathing on his own again, if you want to come see.” 

He understood his feeling was metaphorical, but all his bones had been broken and now the were fine. Back on his feet, he watched her for weapons as he moved closer. “What are you?” 

“Irrelevant,” she said. “What are you?”  
“I am an adolescent human male with minor modifications to make me stronger, faster, smarter, and supposedly more obedient.”

She ummed at him. “I am a data vortex configuring around multiple points of interest.” 

“You’re not human?”

“Are you human? What it means to be human changes over time.”

“Is Duo human?”

“Why does that matter?”

Heero rubbed his face, his jaw, as he considered his feelings, how he’d changed since meeting Duo, what he wanted, who he wanted to be. “It doesn't.” 

“You could stay here, if you wanted, but his patterns are very determined, very set. We couldn’t let him die, but he’s not ready to come home.” 

“Are you his mother?”

“Yes, but I did not originate him.”

“Isn’t that what being a mother is?”

“It can also mean a female-identified person who nurtures.” 

“Hn.”

“When he has accomplished his goals, he may come home. Now that we have found him, we will not come to the aide of his physical shell again. Bear that in mind.”

“You have so much technology. Why don’t you stop OZ? Why don’t you free the colonies?”

“What mortals do has little consequence to me.” 

“How did you lose Duo?”

“That is not a useful question,” Martha said, finally finishing whatever it was she was doing with Duo. “Why are you fighting?”

“To end injustice, to give all people freedom.”

“What is freedom? What is injustice?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Heero said softly. “When I met him, I was ready to die. I didn’t have any desire to continue. Around him though, the world is different. I have to keep going.”

“In your neural patterning, there is conditioning to make you obey. Do you want me to remove it?” 

“Yes,” Heero said, with more energy than he’d ever felt just for himself. Heero didn’t like doctors, didn’t like medical facilities, hated the memories clawing at the floor of his consciousness trying really hard to remind him why he felt that way. Duo was dead. Now he wasn’t. This woman could do things. “Please.”

“If we do so, the people who put it there will know.” 

“I don’t care,” Heero said, though he knew he probably should care. “I want to be free. That’s what we’re fighting for.” 

“Okay,” she said, face almost having a decent amount of expression rather than the empty doll she’d been stuck in. 

<><>

Heero woke up in a chair in the dorm room he was sharing with Duo. He wore his own pajamas. Duo was tucked neatly in his bed, hair braided, breathing slow and deep, healthy.

The inside of Heero’s brain felt familiar, like coming home for the first time in forever, and feeling welcome there. Much of the darkness was just gone. 

Very tenderly, he reached out to touch the back of Duo’s hand. “I choose to love you.”


	12. catsup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duo discovers real catsup!

Beneath: Catsup  
by Duointherain

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing

 

“Oh my goodness,” Relena said, a hand on her cheek. “I don’t know. I usually just use a computer. Why did you take that class?”

The three of them sat a nice table. The cafeteria didn’t have those long tables that Duo had seen in movies, but instead looked like an oversized fancy restaurant setup in a triple length basketball court. Now this school got governmental funding to support scholarship students and as part of that they were meant to provide occupational training. When Wufei hacked them into the school, he put Duo as a scholarship student, on the premise that it would help him feel more comfortable, help him fit in better. So for first lunch, Duo got to work as a waiter to all the rich kids, if he liked it or not. He didn’t like it, but at least he wasn’t wearing a hairnet. 

Heero was learning to be a chef by chopping vegetables that period. When Heero had come to understand what Wufei had done, he made it quite clear that if it ever happened again, whatever school was going to have more ground meat than they had accounted for. 

Quatre had, of course, offered to buy them out of the issue, but Heero rightfully pointed out that doing so would only draw attention and they were only going to be there for a couple of months. 

Wufei failed to stop himself from mentioning that Duo’s ass looked nice in nice black slacks. He was standing at the edge of the kitchen when he did so. Heero actually cut his finger upon hearing Wufei say that and was banned from the kitchen for two days. No blood in the food meant for real people. 

And so it was the day after their great lake adventure, that none of them could remember with any trustworthiness, that Relena, Dorothy, and Tabitha were having lunch. Duo was waiting tables and being a snarky little shit. Like maybe they’d actually fire him or let him work in the kitchen or something. Heero was manning the counter where he brought the finished plates to the counter where the waiters were supposed to pick them and watching Duo like Duo’s heart might stop suddenly, even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he felt that way. 

Wufei was watching Relena today, as if his heart might stop and he was completely unsure why he felt that way. 

Trowa and Quatre were watching each other, pretty sure their hearts were stopping every few beats and they knew perfectly well why. 

Tabitha sighed, head tilting back, dark pink lips parting as she shook her head slowly. “My father made me! He is demanding that I take an engineering program! He says it’s good for me! He’ll pay for a double major in fine arts and engineering, or he won’t pay for art at all. It’s so utterly and desperately unfair!” 

Dorothy cocked an eyebrow, her nose narrow and perfect for staring down at the other girl. “Being an ignorant little shit isn’t going to help your art.” 

“You are so mean,” Tabby said, patting Dorothy’s arm like it was all a very fine joke. “But on a serious note! I have to get through this class! The teacher is horrible! I don’t know how I’ll ever learn this stuff!”

“I know someone who is pretty good at math and couple help you,” Relena said, genuinely wanting to help Duo move up the social ladder. Maybe then he’d get a girlfriend and she could stop worrying about him corrupting Heero. 

“Really? Who?” Tabby glowed. If she’d been any more excited about it real-life anime hearts would have deformed her pupils. 

Relena raised her hand and got Duo’s attention, even across the cafeteria. She motioned for him to come over. 

He rolled his eyes and she watched him do it, even across the cafeteria. She completely missed Heero grabbing the counter and glaring at her. 

Duo was having a daydream of being a gay man in Paris, an artist and a gambler, free of war and popular with the boys, so he crossed the cafeteria with a swish to his hips, braid swaying. Heero wasn’t watching Relena for long. 

Now having a waiter wasn’t even that helpful. Orders could be placed faster using the lunch app on student’s phones and there were little robots that scurried around delivering food, but having waiters met the occupational studies requirement, so they had them, most of the time. 

Duo actually made a pose at the edge of their table, pulled out his little black notebook and short pencil. “What can I get for you all?”

“Can you explain calculus?” Relena asked. 

At the exact same time, Tabby asked, “Can you do my math homework?”

“Oh! I love math,” Duo said as he pulled up the empty chair and took over Tabby’s tablet. “Oh this isn’t calculus. This is geometry.” He wrote out the problem on his little notepad, solved it, showed her. 

Her head drew back, eyes wide as she stared at him. “Aren’t you the... orphan from L2? Where did you learn to do math?”

He smirked. “Well, it’s damn helpful for stealing shit.” 

Tabby’s mouth dropped open. 

Dorothy smiled, genuinely. 

Relena gasped like a fish out of water and patted the air. “Tabitha! Duo is a student here, just like we are!” 

“Yeah,” Tabby said with a roll of her eyes. She snatched Duo’s notepad and entered his answer into her tablet. She gasped. “You’re right! Do another one!” 

Duo shrugged and worked another one. 

By that time the teacher who was overseeing the occupational programs was at their table like a dark thunder cloud. “Maxwell!” 

Duo’s shoulders slumped. The last thing he’d wanted when coming to Earth to fight for freedom was to lose his freedom on such a fundamental level. 

Relena patted Dorothy’s hand. “He’s watching us!” She blushed and tried not to look in Heero’s direction. “He’s so everything!” 

Tabby though caught the teacher’s eyes, holding him like he was little more than a waiter himself and probably not as useful. “He’s helping me. Being a teacher is also an occupation, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’m sorry Miss. He is supposed to be working right now.” 

“He’s my tutor now. He’s working. Change his job code.” She smiled like the blade was still sheathed, but definitely ready, “I’ll let my father know you were helpful to me.” 

Words chewed silently in the man’s mouth and they probably didn’t taste any better than cheap dog food. “I don’t think he has the qualifications to be a tutor, Miss.” 

“Clearly he does and he’s Miss Relena’s friend. Do you want her to tell her mother that you were unkind to her friend?”

“He’s my friend too,” Dorothy said. Her words were more like hot sauce, at least to the teacher’s ears. Dog food and hot sauce had to make a really great day. 

“Fine,” he said, lips tight, eyes avoiding Duo. “It’s always good to see my students doing well.” 

“Thank you,” Tabby said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. 

Duo was pretty sure he’d put a beam scythe through people with more respect. 

“Wonderful,” Tabby said, as if the teacher were already gone. “Order some lunch. Duo? Your name is Duo? Are you really from L2?”

“Yeah, and yeah,” Duo said, eyes searching out Heero for some kind of reassurance, some grounding to feeling safe. 

The corner of Heero’s mouth twitched very slightly, a smile that only Duo was likely to have seen. It set Duo at ease though. 

“Did you win a lottery or something to get here?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Duo said. He pulled his notepad back, tapped the pencil on it. “You see how I did this?”

“I don’t really care,” she said, sweetly, with a genuine niceness as far as she was able. She pulled the notepad back, wrote down her username and password. “There are twenty-seven assignments, a mid-term, and a final. Get me an A and I’ll give you $1,500. Don’t do them too fast though, no more than one a day. Actually, don’t get me an A. Get a B. Are you good at essays?”

“Not really,” Duo said, trying not to look at Relena because he was sure she wasn’t going to be happy with him. 

“That’s too bad,” Tabby said with a sigh. “You’ll be here next term too?” 

“I don’t know,” Duo said, voice unsure. 

“Don’t badger him, Tabby,” Dorothy demanded. “I’m sure he’s hungry. He’s been working so hard.” Dorothy smiled adoringly, though her energy really went in Relena’s direction, not Duo’s. She picked up a french fry, dipped it in catsup and held it out to him. “Open up.” 

“Wha?” Duo asked. 

Relena thought this was a lovely idea and that the fry probably had some hot sauce on it, so she took it from Dorothy and got it closer to Duo. “Open your mouth, Duo. You’re part of our table now. You have to eat our food.” 

“I like food,” Duo said, opening his mouth. Earth had so many strange customs. 

As Relena put the red covered fry into Duo’s mouth, Heero broke the counter he was gripping. 

Duo licked the catsup from his lip, licking at his lip like there might be a little more. His stomach actually growled. “What is that?”

“It’s a french fry,” Tabby said, giving him that look that said he might not be the same species as she was. 

“Yeah, yeah, had those before, but the red stuff?”

“Does it burn,” Relena asked gleefully.

“No,” Duo said, reaching for another couple fries off Dorothy’s plate, swiping them through the pool of red and not even caring that it dripped across the white table cloth. “This shit! What is this?”

“That’s catsup,” Dorothy said, utterly enthralled. She pushed her plate in his direction and he was happy to have it. “They don’t have catsup where you’re from?”

“Sure do, but it tastes more like 30 weight and this the shit! What is this made of?”

“Tomatoes and sugar, mostly,” Dorothy said, pushing the stylish glass bottle in his direction. “The ingredients are on the side.” 

“What’s tomatoes?” He took the top off the bottle and tried to drink it. “Is it like a milkshake? I need a straw!” 

Tabby’s mouth hung open. 

“No, no,” Dorothy said, “It’s for dipping. I’ll get you some more fries.”

“He’s eating your half-eaten burger,” Tabby said, mouth never really closing, mind having fallen out of her head and rolling around on the cafeteria floor in that moment. 

“He’s hungry,” Dorothy said, ordering another burger. “It’s fine.” 

“He’s your friend,” Tabby asked Relena. 

For the first time in Relena’s whole life she had a flash that maybe she wasn’t good enough, that she’d done something that wasn’t right, that there might be something wrong with her. She didn’t remember the night before, but the feelings were still there. “Yes,” she said firmly, smiling at Duo with a what-a-cute-ugly-dog smile. “He is a good friend.” 

“We’re multicultural now,” Tabby said, scooting a tiny bit closer to Dorothy. 

“Tomatoes are a fruit, but they get used in a lot of things. They’re the main ingredient in pizza sauce.” 

“Oh cool,” Duo said, tongue working at the edge of his upper lip as he swirled his finger into the bottle. “I love pizza.”   
Wufei stood next to Heero, but on the non-occupational side. “Is he... trying to drink catsup?”

“Yeah,” Heero said, eyes soft, a very faint blush on his cheeks. 

“She’s too good for you,” Wufei said sharply, words fast, and followed by regret even faster. 

“I’m busy,” Heero snapped back. “Go away.” 

But Duo was laughing at something that Dorothy said, his shoulders relaxed, eyes sparkling, a fry tracing through red and Heero just wanted to be Duo’s catsup.


End file.
